This study investigated knowledge, attitude and decision making on HIV/AIDS among adolescents with hearing impairment in Oyo, Lagos and Kwara States. Seventy-six respondents participated in the study with age range between 16 and 20. The research adopted a descriptive survey research design. Seventy-six students with hearing impairment participated in the study. Three hypotheses were postulated and tested. The main instrument use to gather data was Family Life and HIV/AIDS Education inventory with reliability coefficient of 0.73. Chi square and student t-test methods at alpha level of 0.05 were used to analyze the data collected. The findings revealed that there were significant differences in knowledge, attitude and decision making of adolescents with hearing impairment as a result of Family Life and HIV/AIDS Education (FLHE). On the basis of the positive outcome, the study further recommended some ways of improving the effectiveness of Family Life and HIV/AIDS Education to be able to achieve the desired result among adolescents with hearing impairment and adolescents generally. ... [more]

As states and federal legislation have invested in integration of new technologies into education, the teacher’s role as the user of such technologies in the classroom becomes more prominent (Telecommunications Act of 1996). However, relevant prior research suggests that teacher resistance to new technologies remains high. This study explores teachers’ acceptance of handheld computer use, and identifies key intention determinants for using this technology based on a modified version of the technology acceptance model. The new model with five constructs—(1) perceived ease of use, (2) perceived usefulness, (3) subjective norms, (4) intention to use, and (5) dependability—was tested using the handheld computer acceptance survey responses from 45 special education teachers grouped into four groups by experience of using technology for data collection. The results showed that the direct effect of two constructs, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, on intention to use a handheld computer was statistically significant. The dependability factor, which was not included in any prior technology acceptance literature, had a statistically significant effect on perceived ease of use and usefulness, and intention to use a handheld computer, respectively. Groups of participants differed on only subjective norm. Theoretical and practical implications were also discussed. ... [more]

The prevalence of ADHD was studied among 200 UAE school-age children. Variables that distinguish ADHD and non-ADHD children were examined, including child characteristics, parents’ sociodemographics, socioeconomic status, family environment, and parental style of influence. Results indicated that 12.5 % of the children had ADHD symptomatology, and that the prevalence ratio varied across the three ADHD subtypes, with the following rates; 1.5 % for the combined type, 7.5 % for the inattentive type, and 3.5 % for the hyperactive-impulsive type. The results of the logistic regressions indicated that ADHD inattentive type was positively associated with gender, and harsh discipline. Children with ADHD inattentive type were predominately males and were more likely to experience harsh disciplining compared to children without ADHD. On the other hand, none of the child characteristics, parent’s sociodemographics, family environment and parenting were significant predictors of ADHD hyperactivity-impulsivity type. The clinical and policy implications of the findings are discussed. ... [more]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differential classroom structure and efficacy reported by general and special educators at the elementary and secondary level. General and special educators (n = 774, return rate of 37%) from a large school district in the southeast US participated in the study. The participants completed a modified version of the Bender Classroom Structure Questionnaire in order to determine their use of cognitive strategies, management strategies, and individualized instructional strategies. In addition, the teachers completed a modified version of the Teacher Efficacy Scale to probe their efficacy in serving students with disabilities. A Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine level of variance within and between participants. Findings indicate differences in classroom structure between elementary and secondary settings and that special and general educators differed in their instructional practices. ... [more]

This study sought to better understand the cultural meaning of adulthood and disability in a large city in central Mexico. Using an ethnographic case study research design that included interviews and observations, this study addressed the research question: What is the cultural meaning and accompanying challenges of becoming an adult with disability in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico? Results indicate that the adult life of a person with a disability is difficult. Corruption, societal rejection, and inadequate school and social services are challenges this population faces. Analyses also revealed that Wolfensberger’s (1972) original depiction of the social roles people with disabilities play in society was still accurate in today’s Mexico. Research findings and implications for future study are also discussed. ... [more]

Literature on Social Stories cautions that there is little empirical evidence for their effectiveness. Researchers have called for further investigations to determine the components of Social Stories intervention packages that contribute to their efficacy. Gray has introduced a ratio of sentence types to be used in Social Stories. The present study seeks to investigate if Gray’s recommended sentence ratio is an essential component of Social Stories. For this purpose, a 10-Step Social Stories intervention model using Gray’s sentence ratio (i.e., a ‘contextual’ Social Story), and one omitting Gray’s sentence ratio (i.e., a ‘directive’ Social Story), was compared in teaching social skills to students with ASD. Contextual Social Stories consistently yielded fewer trials to criterion and maintained stable performance at criterion.... [more]

This study examined the reading interest and emergent literacy skills of 31 children with Down syndrome (DS) ages 7 to 13. Parents completed questionnaires on their children’s interest in reading, home literacy environments, and parental beliefs about reading. Children were then assessed on their cognitive and emergent literacy skills. Correlational analyses revealed that parental beliefs related to children’s receptive vocabulary and comprehension, especially when parents reported asking questions during book reading, encouraging children to ask questions and help tell the story, and guiding them to learn lessons and life skills from books. Home literacy environments predicted children’s interest in reading, and children’s mental age predicted their emergent literacy skills. A mental age of 3.50 years appears necessary (but not sufficient) for children with DS to achieve beginning literacy skills.... [more]

This study explores how young people participate in the construction of their learning disabilities and how the experience impacts their self-concept. None of the interviewees in the study participated in the Identification Placement and Review Committee (IPRC) meetings conducted in Ontario. The interviewees did participate in a variety of other forums such as psychological testing, university development centers, and conversations with family members, and teachers. Thematic analysis identified two key concepts that emerge from experiences of disablement in school systems: the importance of knowledge and the construction of identity through experiences in educational settings. A children’s rights framework and the new sociology of childhood are used to explore the construction of self-concept for children and young people with disabilities. Further, the nature and timing of children’s participation in matters regarding them and their label of exceptionality in the Ontario education system are explored. ... [more]

Forty eighth grade students with and without learning disabilities in an inclusive classroom participated in an adapted Step-Up to Writing (Auman, 2002) intervention program. The intervention targeted expository essays and composing topic, detail, transitional, and concluding sentences. A repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that both students with and without disabilities made significant improvements in expository writing skills as measured on the state’s criterion reference test for written expression. ... [more]

The aim of this article is to present findings from a study (Alexandersson, 2007) about how one student – called Sofia - with intellectual disability interacts and communicates with her classmates and her teachers in an inclusive setting. Furthermore, the aim is also to analyse in what way the interaction contributes to Sofia’s social participation and learning process. This complex aim implies a theoretical framework that consists of complementary theoretical perspectives, a sociocultural perspective, a social interaction perspective and a special education perspective. Data were mainly collected through video observations and participant observations. The result from the study shows a continuum of varied situations for Sofia’s learning where she becomes an active participant in the classroom. In general, there are three main categories of situations for learning: One where Sofia is beside the learning activity; one where she is in the learning activity and one where she is moving between to be beside and to be in the situations. In other words; Sofia can place herself in different positions in relation to varied learning situations. How she places herself depends on what support and scaffolding she gets. It is obvious that Sofia’s own actions are of great importance for how successful her interaction will be as well as the affordances given. Sofia’s strategy for interaction and communication with her classmates and her teachers is both verbal and nonverbal. Different bodily expressions in the classroom contribute to how Sofia gets involved in interaction processes. The teachers and the classmates’ roles as mediators of social and cognitive skills are of central importance. ... [more]

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the educational advocacy experiences of parents of adolescents and young adults identified as having a learning disability (LD) through the lens of four dimensions of advocacy. Seventeen mothers of youth with LD responded to items in a questionnaire and 13 also engaged in in-depth interviews. It was found that the dimensions of advocacy provided a useful framework for understanding the participants’ experiences and parents could be categorized as insiders, outsiders, allies, and adversaries with different advocacy outcomes. ... [more]

This article examines the value of situated learning as an alternative to the traditional college course instructional approach for pre-service teachers. The situated learning mode of teaching immerses students in the actual setting, practicing the skills and concepts emphasized in the curriculum. Through a partnership with a college, community agency and public school, graduate students in the special education program developed and implemented a life skills curriculum for individuals with developmental disabilities, while learning essential principles of delivering instruction. The school aged students who participated in the study were from an urban, racially mixed public school district and they attended the program at the end of their regular school day. Analysis of data from student surveys and focus groups revealed the effectiveness of the situated learning model. ... [more]

Since the inception of special education, researchers have identified higher proportions of minority students with disabilities than expected. Yet, relatively few studies have considered the contributions of the school context on a large scale to the identification of students with mental retardation (MR), emotional disturbance (ED), and learning disabilities (LD). The present study examined the extent to which race and gender of 1,394,024 students, alone and nested within 2,104 schools, predicted identification in the special education categories of MR, ED, and LD. Results revealed that, alone, student race and gender significantly predicted identification in all three categories. However, when student race and gender were nested within school context variables, they were not significant predictors; school variables alone predicted identification. School variables that were significant included school attendance rate, for all three special education categories. For MR, school mobility rate, teacher education, adequate yearly progress, and size and locale of the district were also significant predictors. The proportion of students from low income families and average teacher salaries were significant predictors for ED, and district size, as well as ratio of pupils to certified staff were significant predictors for LD. Results are discussed in the context of previous work in the field. ... [more]

Using a framework of critical literacy, and acknowledging the characteristics of Radical Change, the authors explore 75 North American youth fiction novels which depict characters with disabilities. Books were identified from a variety of sources (i.e., awards lists, book reviews, other research, and word-of-mouth), to represent a random sample that would work within the research timeframe. From the sample, characters who were described as having Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) (n=2) or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (n=14) were analyzed to determine trends and patterns in the character descriptions, settings, and plot lines. There appears to be an underrepresentation of characters with FASD in North American youth fiction in comparison to the representation of characters with ASD, a similar group in society in terms of incidence. An annotated bibliography includes the 15 titles portraying characters with FASD or ASD within the larger sample. ... [more]

This causal-comparative study evaluated a 30-week chess instructional program implemented within special education math classes for students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades in a suburban middle school located in the southwestern United States. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was utilized to compare the adjusted means for the comparison and treatment groups on the students’ math achievement as measured by end-of-year course grades and state assessment scores, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). Pretest scores and grade levels served as covariates. Results indicated a significant difference on four of the measures in favor of the treatment group: end-of-year course grades, overall TAKS math scale scores, and percentage scores on two specific TAKS math objectives: Numbers, Operations, and Quantitative Reasoning and Probability and Statistics. No significant differences were found between the groups on the other four TAKS math objectives: Patterns, Relationships, and Algebraic Reasoning, Geometry and Spatial Reasoning, Concepts and Uses of Measurement, and Underlying Processes and Mathematical Tools. Causation and generalizability are difficult due to the narrow scope of this study. However, these results are encouraging and suggest chess is a potentially effective instructional tool for students who receive special education services in math. ... [more]

In most developed countries, research studies that investigate the effects of special education on student outcomes have become conventional practice. However, in developing countries such as the twin-island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, there are no studies about the progress and outcomes of students and youths with disabilities. This correlational study is the first attempt to use direct assessments of English language arts and mathematics, as well as independent functioning skills assessments, aimed at exploring the academic achievement and employment outcomes of 124 participants with and without disabilities in Tobago. The study also compared the performance outcomes of Tobago participants with disabilities with US datasets to see how they measure up in terms of academic achievement and employment. Quantitative analyses of direct assessments and multiple survey responses highlight the factors that predict outcomes in academic achievement and employment among Tobago participants. Findings indicate that parental involvement and support, instruction, student engagement, and support for and difficulty with school work were significant academic achievement predictors for students with disabilities, whereas there were no significant predictors of academic achievement for students without disabilities. The significant predictors of employment for youths with disabilities were parent expectations, teachers’ levels of education, youths’ school experiences and school program, whereas levels of social interactions with friends, insurance benefits, money skills, types of instruction and types of pre-employment preparation were significant predictors of employment for youths without disabilities. Finally, comparisons with US datasets indicate that Tobago students with disabilities were performing at lower grade levels in academic areas than their US counterparts. Results also found that while Tobago youths with disabilities had fewer employment opportunities than US youths with disabilities, Tobago working youths with disabilities earned higher wages than those youths in the US. These findings highlight the differences between countries in special education practices that present implications for future research on the impact of country policies and programs on outcomes. ... [more]

Local educational agencies are challenged to teach students classified with autism in general education inclusive settings. Findings of empirical studies have reported many educators lacked the necessary pedagogical coursework and training to meet the instructional needs of these students. Building principals have reported they lacked the necessary training, skills, and confidence to evaluate and support teachers who teach students with autism. The purpose of the present paper was to survey 60 elementary school principals, in the Southeastern region of New York, to determine if they perceived they were trained, skilled, and confident in their knowledge of ABA to evaluate and support teachers who worked with students classified with autism in inclusive settings. Nine principals did not participate in this survey. Fifty-one graduate students expedited the interview process and completion of the surveys. The results of the survey supported the hypothesis that principals who understand behavior-analytic strategies grounded in the principles of ABA perceived they were better able to support educators who teach students with autism in inclusive classroom settings. ... [more]

Human systems have to adapt to climate change and the natural disasters predicted to increase in frequency as a result. These disasters have both direct and indirect health effects. Certain groups, the poor, the elderly, children and those with disabilities are set to be more seriously impacted by disasters because of their greater inherent vulnerability. Adaptation to the health impacts of disasters requires the cooperation and input from all sectors of government and civil society, including schools. This critical literature review examined the body of peer reviewed literature published in English addressing school disaster planning policies with a particular focus on children with disabilities. Results show that children and youth with disabilities are especially vulnerable to disasters because of socioeconomic and health factors inherent to disabilities. While schools in the U.S. have policies to deal with disasters, these policies are neither comprehensive nor inclusive. The empirical evidence base from which they are developed is severely limited. No publications were identified that represent the current disaster planning of schools in countries like Australia, the UK or Canada. Recommendations for future research are outlined to bridge knowledge gaps and help establish appropriate and inclusive school disaster policies for children with disabilities. ... [more]

This study examined data from the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study (SEELS, 2003) to compare the social skills of children in the U.S. with comorbid learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (LD+AD/HD) to their peers with LD-only and AD/HD-only, and to assess how specific demographic factors moderate the relationship between disability status and social skill. Results showed that the social skills deficits of children with comorbid LD+AD/HD were more marked than those of children with LD-only. Additionally, family involvement significantly moderated the relationship between disability status and social skill, with increased family involvement associated with increased social skills among children with comorbid LD+AD/HD and AD/HD-only. ... [more]

This observational study illustrates how teachers’ use of motivational utterances is expressed to pupils with learning difficulties in special education in Norwegian compulsory schooling. The term motivational utterances refers to teacher utterances that can help increase pupils’ expectancy of success and task value. Video recordings were made of teachers in special education who were deemed to be proficient in motivating pupils. The results indicate that methods used by teachers to improve pupils’ expectancy of success in a subject can be divided into six categories: subject-affirmative praise, subject-oriented behavioral praise, subject-detailed praise, existing knowledge, pupil emphasis and challenging utterances. The results also indicate that the methods used by teachers to increase pupils’ task value can be grouped into seven categories: pupil involvement, choice, justification, enthusiasm, downplaying the degree of difficulty, utility value and reward. These categories can raise awareness and serve as inspiration for other teachers, which in turn may foster learning among pupils with learning difficulties. Consequently, the categories and the use of motivational utterances are able to contribute to a differentiated and inclusive education. ... [more]

The purpose of this study is to compare the balance control of participants with and without HI and also to investigate the effect of a Balance Programme (BP) on their balance control (HI; n = 2, M age = 7 years old). The BP consisted of six practice sessions of 45 minutes each. The Balance Tasks used to assess balance control were static Balance Tasks: two-leg stand, one-leg stand and dynamic Balance Tasks: in-place jump and in-place hop. Kinetic data such as the Centre of Pressure (COP) and the Ground Reaction Force (GRF) was captured using a force plate. The results revealed differences in Balance Tasks involving static and dynamic balance control between participants with HI and without HI. Improvement in balance control of the participants is observed for some of the Balance Tasks after the introduction of the BP which indicates the inconclusive effectiveness of the BP. The authors suggest that the instructional approach and number of practice sessions may be the contributing factors affecting the effectiveness of the BP. A new BP with an alternative instructional approach together with more practice sessions is warranted to benefit both children with and without HI so as to make inclusion possible. ... [more]

The Taped Problems intervention is an evidence-based practice that involves a self-monitored, audio-recording procedure in which students follow along with automated recordings of math facts and their solutions. A multiple-probes-across-tasks design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Taped Problems intervention on the division-fact fluency of an eighth-grade student with an intellectual disability. Results indicated immediate and sustained increases in the student’s division-fact fluency across sets of problems. Discussion focuses on the practical implications of the results, limitations of the current investigation, and directions for future studies. ... [more]

Over the past few decades Special Olympics has been criticized within the academic community for failing to provide inclusive recreational services, reinforcing negative stereotypes, misusing volunteers, and lacking research demonstrating positive impacts for individuals with intellectual disabilities and the larger community (Hourcadde, 1989; Storey 2004, 2008). Following the recent passing of Eunice Kennedy Shriver on August 11, 2009 and her husband, R. Sargent Shriver on January 18, 2011, it seems timely to respond to these critics in defense of Special Olympics and the tremendous accomplishments of the Shrivers. This article presents a brief history of the Special Olympics (SO) movement; summarizes the concerns presented in the literature about the organization; highlights the mission and offerings; and presents counter points in defense of its programs. Within the article we advocate that the impact of Special Olympics on the lives of individuals with significant developmental disabilities far surpasses that of any other organization in the world, and SO’s potential for future success is certain should the mission and goals remain so strongly focused. As former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley eloquently stated on the opening day of the first International Special Olympic Games in 1968 You know, Eunice, the world will never be the same after this. ... [more]